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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27716912">Redux</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/chronicle23/pseuds/chronicle23'>chronicle23</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Community (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/M</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 16:07:04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>4,516</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27716912</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/chronicle23/pseuds/chronicle23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>He went in endless circles of convincing himself he was too fucked up to share pieces of himself with someone else, but it was too late, he realized, because Britta had managed to get her hands on all those pieces whether he was ready to share them or not. </i>
</p><p> </p><p>Set at the end of S6, in which Britta also decides she's leaving Greendale, forcing Jeff to do some soul-searching.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Britta Perry/Jeff Winger</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>32</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Redux</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I actually had no intention of writing this, as I've had absolutely zero writing ideas (and free time) for months. I had a dream a couple weeks ago that I was watching a never-before-seen episode that went *exactly* like this. A premonition, I hope. Maybe there's hope? Maybe the movie will give us our closure? Who knows. Anyway, I've decided final season Jeff/Britta are now my fave, it's the six year build up that does it for me 😫</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <strong>WEDNESDAY</strong>
</p><p>“Hey blondie, gimme another,” an unsavory clump of a man motioned to Britta across the bar. Jeff watched her smile and roll her eyes as she extracted herself from their conversation to attend to her paying customer. He was spending another weeknight at the Vatican during Britta’s shift. He’d been doing it a lot, since Abed and Annie had announced their imminent departure and he was kind of just wandering around, untethered, trying to decide when everything had gone from familiar to uncharted.</p><p>But sitting in the dim and wood-paneled bar made him feel a little more grounded. At least this was one thing that would stay the same. A Macallan neat, the smell of reheated fried food, and Britta stuffing tips in the back pocket of her jeans while they talked during the lulls in customers and joked around. It was low effort, it was easy. It was familiar. </p><p>It was getting late, and besides the blondie caller and a slim assortment of regulars, the place was pretty much empty. Britta came over again and leaned across the bar to talk to him. Wads of $5 bills lined the pockets of her jeans, and her white t-shirt held a few grease stains from the burgers, which Jeff knew she hated. A few strands of loose hair had worked their way out of her ponytail. A true Britta-esque look, easy and put together, until you looked close enough to see the disarray in the finer details.</p><p>“You’re going to have to dip into your savings if you keep coming here,” she said, sliding his tab to him. “You don’t qualify for the friends and family discount.”</p><p>“Ouch,” Jeff mimed, pulling out his card and handing it to her. She smirked and tucked it under her arm as she grabbed empty glasses in both hands. Jeff watched as the older lady who also worked Wednesdays met her halfway and took the card.</p><p>“I’ll do it hon, it’s your second-to-last night,” she told her, smiling as she lightly patted her shoulder and hurried away to run the card. Jeff narrowed his eyes and watched as Britta’s face shifted, her mouth scowling up and scrunching over to one side, meaning she didn’t want to talk about it.</p><p>“Did you quit or did you get the boot?” he asked her anyway. </p><p>“Neither. I gave my two weeks.”</p><p>“Moving on to bigger and better? I’m sure Shirley will take you back if you beg for forgiveness.”</p><p>Britta gave a small smile, almost a sad smile. “Moving on a lot, actually.” She looked up at him, her eyes dark in the dim light. Jeff got a sinking feeling. It was the kind of look he knew well, the face of someone about to deliver shitty news. </p><p>“Okay… don’t tell everyone else yet. I’m moving to Oakland.” Jeff heard and saw the words come out of her mouth, but they seemed to fly away into the air. He couldn’t absorb them. </p><p>“You’re what? You’re when?”</p><p>“Um… this weekend. After my final on Friday.” <em> Fuck. </em> This was classic Britta, Jeff thought. Cut and run and give everyone the absolute bare minimum of a notice. She’d always been like that, always a little flighty, always on the verge of doing something a little insane. He thought it had gotten somewhat better over the past two years, but maybe not. Maybe people didn’t really change. But knew from experience that if Britta was ditching, she had a reason. Something she didn’t want to deal with, so she would just turn and run in the other direction. </p><p>“Why?”</p><p>She shrugged. “I need a fresh start. There’s nothing really keeping me here now that I’m done with school.”</p><p>Jeff could argue that there was actually a lot for her to hold onto here. Her job, her graduation, her parents. The group. Her friends. Friends who had known her a long time and cared about her, like him. “So you’re just like… going? Do you have stuff lined up?”</p><p>“Well, yeah, kinda. My friend Marni has a room open at her place and said I could crash for a while. I might bartend again, maybe try to work at a shelter.”</p><p>“That’s… good?” <em> Sounds just like here, </em> Jeff thought. Replace Marni with Abed and Annie and it was exactly the same situation, plus the thousands of fellow hipsters for her to mingle with.</p><p>“Yeah. And Blade’s out there too, he has been for a while. He keeps asking me to visit, so. Who knows? Just seems like it’s time to move on. Everybody is.” <em> Fuck. </em> So that was it. Britta wasn’t as cool with change as she liked to pretend she was, so instead of dealing with it, she was going to run back into a situation she already knew, even if it was a shitty one, and self-sabotage. Which was a page Jeff could’ve taken straight from his own book, but it irritated him that let-me-psychoanalyze-you, confront-your-feelings Britta was going to take the lazy man’s route. </p><p>“Are you sure that’s a good idea?”</p><p>Britta furrowed her brow and looked him square in the eye. “You don’t get to tell me what’s good for me.”</p><p>“What the hell’s that supposed to mean?”</p><p>She sighed. “Nothing. Look, forget it. I’m leaving in a couple days. I don’t want to spend them arguing with you. I’ll see you tomorrow at the party.” Britta turned her back to him, wiping down glasses. Jeff stuffed his credit card in his wallet and dragged himself to his feet, feeling detached, like he’d just watched someone else participate in the entire conversation. He turned again to look at her before he opened the door, once again wondering when everything stopped feeling familiar. </p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>THURSDAY</strong>
</p><p>Jeff shoved a pillow on top of his phone as the alarm went off the next morning. He’d spent the night in a weird place between consciousness and sleep, jagged pieces of incoherent thoughts and half-formed dreams preventing his mind from actually succumbing to sleep. He’d pictured Britta driving away, forgetting her phone. He’d been trying to call her and the phone buzzed and gurgled from inside a half-finished glass of scotch at the Vatican. Another fragment of a dream involved her running around the carnival looking for Blade, dragging along a kid named Axe that had a mini-version of Blade’s stupid face. And none of it made sense and it was annoying, because he wasn’t the kind of person to lose sleep over things that didn’t involve him. Except, he had been replaying every word from last night over and over in his mind trying to figure out why exactly Britta was extracting herself from Colorado.</p><p>He dragged him himself out of bed and through the day in a similar fashion, playing movie clips during his two classes while he street-viewed different Oakland neighborhoods on Google Maps on his phone. He was doing more of the same as they all sat around the study table later, at what was supposed to be a farewell party for Annie, Abed, and Elroy, but now included Britta as well. And everyone had something to say about it, of course. That’s where they had currently landed.</p><p>“But <em> Britta</em>, I’m coming back,” Annie was protesting, but it sounded more like whining. “Probably,” she added as an afterthought.</p><p>“It’s true,” Abed pointed out. “Out of all of us, Britta is the least likely to keep in contact.”</p><p>Britta laughed. “Come on guys, stop being dramatic. It’s 2015. Look, Elroy gave me this phone that supports the lithium mining business which is threatening the natural water supply in Chile...” She paused to let the group let out a collective moan, then continued. “So I can Time Face you whenever.”</p><p>“It’s FaceTime, dummy. You’re the worst,” Chang said, but he smiled as he said it. Jeff wasn’t in the mood to watch everyone pretend to be upset when they really weren’t, because they weren’t. Annie and Abed had something to look forward to. It didn’t really affect them, because they were leaving anyway. Frankie would be fine as long as she had the school to manage and the dean to boss around. Chang… Jeff wasn’t sure what exactly went on in his mind, nor did he really want to know, but he assumed Chang would be fine also. So that left him. And he was feeling decidedly un-fine. </p><p>Because Abed was right. Abed would answer their texts and calls. Annie would too, and probably would come back at least once or twice to snoop around in everyone’s lives, just for good measure. But Britta? She was like an outdoor cat that enjoyed regular meals and company, but it was never really content to stick around in one place for very long. They had always said their goodbyes to her for summer and winter break and hoped she’d make it back alive the next semester, because she would fall off the grid for weeks at a time. </p><p>And the thought of her falling off the grid for good? That was a notion Jeff wasn’t really ready to entertain, because he wasn’t entirely sure how he would be able to navigate it. Britta, as much as she faded in and out of his life, was a constant. And a constant was something he’d never really had in his life before, until now. Whether he was arguing with Britta or sleeping with her or conspiring with her, she’d always been there. She’d always shown up. For better or worse. She knew him the best out of all of them. Every single semi-important thing that had happened to him over the past six years, in one way or another, involved Britta. He got up from the table, knowing he had been quiet too long and people would start asking questions or expecting a Winger speech that he wasn’t prepared to give.</p><p>He was sitting outside on the library steps, the warm breeze suggesting the start of summer, when Britta found him ten minutes later. </p><p>“Not in the party mood?” she said, sitting down beside him.</p><p>“Just needed some air. They never stop talking sometimes,” he lied, not looking at her.</p><p>“I feel that,” she agreed, also not looking at him. He wanted to say something, but everything seemed either too much or too little, so he said nothing.</p><p>“So, look,” Britta said after a minute. She stood up, turning to go back inside, but then continued. “I know you hate this stuff, but I just want to say thanks. For forcing me into this crazy group and for putting up with me for this long. I’m… I’ll miss you.” </p><p>She turned and paused on her heels for a second, waiting just long enough for him to say something. When he didn’t, she reached for the door to go back inside. And that’s what did it for him, because suddenly it felt like she really was leaving, and was partly already gone. </p><p>“Don’t do it,” he tumbled out.</p><p>“Jeff…”</p><p>“I can’t survive at Greendale without you,” he said, saying it as a joke, but it wasn’t.</p><p>“That’s very untrue. And it’s not like you’ll never see me again.”</p><p>“I barely see you now and you live 15 minutes down the street. What’s it going to be like when you’re 1,500 miles away?”</p><p>“You can call me. And I’ll call you. You can FaceTime me. And Abed,” she pointed out. “And Annie,” she said more pointedly. </p><p>“That’s them,” Jeff said, taking a step toward her, “not you. I can’t, not with you.”</p><p>She looked up at him, and he felt it all. Felt everything that was always there, between them, that slow and constant burn. “Why?”</p><p>“You know why,” he said, in a low voice. “Because of everything you just said.”</p><p>“I wasn’t… I just wanted you to know that after everything that’s happened between us, it just, you know… it meant something to me,” she said, fumbling over the words, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear.  Jeff felt like he was right back where he started on the library steps six years ago, because she was still beautiful in ways that made parts of his chest physically ache.</p><p>“Well, yeah, it meant something to me too,” he said, reflexively reaching for her hand. He remembered when he’d asked her that same question, a million years ago in the study room, with paintball stains and sweat on their skin.</p><p>“But sometimes that’s not enough,” she told him, taking her hand back, her eyes glowing and wet at the edges.</p><p>“Britta,” he breathed, knowing the punch was coming before it even landed.</p><p>“It’s okay, Jeff. Don’t be an Abed. This isn’t a movie. Sometimes it just doesn’t work out that way.”</p><p><em> Crash. </em> There was the punch. “I want it to, though,” he said, for the sake of salvage. He was pretty sure he meant it, and that was enough, wasn’t it?</p><p>She stared at him then, her eyes now hard as stone, shining with tears that didn’t dare fall. Her gaze cut straight through him, because she still saw through him like glass. “It can’t work. We dated for almost a year and it took us twice that long to actually admit it. We get engaged, and then you- and then, <em> we </em> called it off the same day. We’re not cut out for this. So don’t make it harder than it already is.”</p><p>And then she went back inside. He waited a few minutes, then followed her back in, staring across the fault line that now separated them at the table.</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>FRIDAY</strong>
</p><p>Time was a funny thing, because Jeff’s conversation with Britta seemed like it lasted for an hour, but it was maybe only five minutes. His entire Friday felt like it lasted for five minutes, but it was already 10:00pm when he finally tucked his emergency scotch back into his desk drawer and left campus. He’d been stretching out his allotted glass in his office since his last class ended, and the night janitor kept coming back to mop the same spot in the hall. He suspected it was a welfare check and decided to take his bitterness home to the safety of closed doors.</p><p>When he pulled up to his building, he sat in the car for a while, unwilling to go inside, because that seemed like it would make things final. The day would be done, and tomorrow would be Saturday, and Britta would officially be gone. And then what? The weekly phone calls that slowly became only occasional, and then eventually turned into nothing? Twice a year texts? What Jeff really couldn’t pinpoint was why exactly this mattered so much. Again, the situation was exactly the same with Annie and Abed. And it had already been the same for Shirley and Troy. They’d all adapted. And saying those goodbyes was hard and would be hard. It was the last of the group. It would mean no more of Abed’s movie references and shockingly accurate analyses of human behavior. No more doe eyes or reality checks from Annie, and finally laying their irrational but innocuous flirtation to rest. He’d gotten even closer to everybody over the past year, and Annie and Abed were what he would classify as good friends. Maybe even best friends. So what was so different about Britta? </p><p>He already knew the answer. Because if Annie and Abed were his best friends, what did that make her? Everything. The reason a small part of him still fluttered with a schoolboy excitement whenever she sat down to his right. The reason he couldn’t eat a bagel, see a cat, hear Roxanne on the radio, or talk to his brother, without immediately thinking of her. The reason he hadn’t been in an actual relationship since they broke up. The reason that he chose to say stupid, untrue things about her and push her away. The reason he’d paused at a jewelry case at the mall last year. Because Britta was everything, and the concept of a person being everything was terrifying. It meant they had the power to destroy you. Or make you exponentially better. </p><p>And he knew, he knew it then. He’d been mulling around for six years and he’d just end up mulling around for six more, because that’s what he did. He went in endless circles of convincing himself he was too fucked up to share pieces of himself with someone else, but it was too late, he realized, because Britta had managed to get her hands on all those pieces whether he was ready to share them or not. There would be no moving on, no settling, no things fading with time. So it didn’t matter if he went upstairs or sat in the car all damn night. Nothing was going to change unless he could see her and try to explain everything that had just solidified in his brain. But he didn’t even know when she was actually leaving, he realized. Which was insane. She’d said after her final on Friday. He quite possibly may have seen her for the last time last night. And that was suddenly unacceptable, because he was already on the way across town to apartment 303. </p><p>“Is Britta here?” he blurted out before Abed even completely opened the door. He saw past Abed into the apartment, where boxes were stacked up everywhere. They must have been subletting it for the rest of the lease, since none of them were going to be living there anymore. </p><p>“No,” he said. “Do you want to come in?”</p><p>“Uh…” No, he really didn’t. Not at all. Where the hell was she?</p><p>Abed stepped aside, leaving the choice up to Jeff. He took a cautionary step inside. The walls were just as dingy and awful as he remembered. For fuck’s sake, how had he ever stood by and let Britta end up living here? No wonder she was eager to leave. </p><p>Daniel, Britta’s decrepit cat, jumped off the couch where he’d been sleeping to slink around Jeff’s legs and meow loudly. He was also clearly displeased with the current state of affairs. It’d been a while since he’d last seen the cat up close, but he’d seen him plenty of times the year that he and Britta had been together. Jeff used to pick out her weird soy flakes from her omelettes and feed them to Daniel while Britta screamed at them both, at Jeff for offering and at the cat for accepting.</p><p>Annie poked her head out of her room at the sudden commotion, holding a roll of packing tape in one hand and her phone in the other. “Are you looking for Britta? She’s leaving right from work,” she said as she walked into the kitchen.</p><p>“What?” Jeff asked stupidly, though he’d heard Annie clear as day. He looked over to the corner that Britta had occupied, and it was indeed empty, dust bunnies clumped around on the floor. The cat meowed again, giving him a flicker of hope.</p><p>“What about her cat?” he asked. “She’s not taking him?” That seemed impossible, as Britta would choose her cat over any of them, any day of the week. And she had, on more than one occasion. She’d pushed him away post-coital embrace plenty of times in favor of Daniel. <em> He was here first, Winger, </em> she’d always say.</p><p>“I’m supposed to drop him off after her shift,” Annie explained. “Which I’m not looking forward to. He hates going in the carrier.”</p><p>“I’ll do it,” Jeff volunteered immediately. “When does she get out?”</p><p>“Midnight. Why?” Annie asked suspiciously. </p><p>“Because Jeff’s about to pull a classic Ross, despite the obvious lack of an airport,” Abed deadpanned. </p><p>“Oh, Lord! I knew it!” a metallic voice exclaimed. Annie held up her phone, where Shirley was on FaceTime. “Don’t you dare hang up on me. Somebody get the damn cat. Let’s go!” </p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>SATURDAY</strong>
</p><p>It was 11:45pm by the time the three of them had managed to corner, capture, and shackle a yowling Daniel into his carrier, then pile into the Lexus to hightail it to the Vatican. Annie had called shotgun, and looked over at Jeff while he waited impatiently at a red light. Some kind of wordless exchange passed between them. She knew. There was always something between them, some kind of wall that stopped them from acting on whatever might have happened between them. Neither he nor Annie had ever said that the reason was Britta out loud, but they didn’t have to. It was out there now though, and Annie seemed appreciative that there was now some kind of closure, instead of what-ifs. She took Jeff’s hand and squeezed it briefly before the light changed, and he smiled at her sadly, wondering just how many people one person could possibly handle saying goodbye to in a week.</p><p>The clock on the dash flicked to midnight just as they pulled into the parking lot. Jeff felt like he was sweating nails, everything hurt. He saw Britta’s car still parked by the back door and didn’t know if he wanted to laugh or throw up. </p><p>“You can do this,” Annie reassured him, smiling. </p><p>“Good luck, Jeffrey!” Shirley’s voice cooed through the phone.</p><p>“In my experience, there is no such thing as luck,” Abed quoted from the back seat. “Kidding. Wasn’t sure which motif to go with. Obi-Wan seemed like a safe bet.”</p><p>“Abed! Don’t stress him out,” Annie chastised. </p><p>“Okay, I’m going,” Jeff announced, undecided if a 40 year-old being cheered on to talk about his feelings was pathetic or endearing. He grabbed the cat carrier from the backseat and forced himself inside before he could change his mind. Britta was wiping down glasses again behind the bar. She didn’t see him at first because her back was turned, but froze with the rag and glass in her hands when she saw him. Jeff felt a fresh wave of hot panic pulse through his veins, but forced himself to walk up to her. </p><p>“What are you doing here?” she asked. “And why do you have my cat?”</p><p>“I wanted to talk to you. Again,” he clarified. </p><p>“Don’t do this. We already talked about this,” Britta said, turning away to wipe down the bar. “I really need to finish this so I can get going.”</p><p>He followed her. People were looking at him now and whispering, but he didn’t particularly care. “Can’t it wait? For just two minutes?”</p><p>Britta stopped intently cleaning for a minute to look at him, but then continued and didn’t say anything. There was nothing warm about the way she looked at him. It was actually the opposite of how he wanted her to look at him. He decided this was probably one of the worst ideas he’d ever had. But he was desperate. </p><p>“I still have the faucets you stole for me from my old condo,” he blurted out. “And I still have your voicemail from freshman year.”</p><p>She moved on to clean another part of the bar, and he followed her again. The words were snowballing now, rolling down a hill and gaining speed. He couldn’t stop talking even if he wanted to.</p><p>“I went on one crappy date after we broke up and I haven’t been out with anyone since.”</p><p>That got her stop, but then she rearranged herself to count the money in the register.</p><p>“You’re the one who was there when I ruined that kid’s bar mitzvah, and at my dad’s on Thanksgiving, and when I was freaking out about graduating.”</p><p>Now it wasn’t just Britta he was talking to. People had looked up to watch what was going on. He saw Annie and Abed sneak in through the door out of the corner of his eye.</p><p>“You’re always there. Even when I don’t ask you to be. Or explicitly ask you not to be. You just are, because you know I’m full of crap.”</p><p>Britta continued counting the money, her eyes flicking up every so often. She still hadn’t said anything, which was really making him want to turn around and book it home and never leave his apartment again. But then he realized that it could really only go one way or the other. Make an ass out of himself, and she stayed and they worked out their mess. Or, make an ass of himself and she left and they never had to talk about anything he was saying ever again. So he continued.</p><p>“I don’t think I can ever repay you for what you did for me. Or make it up to you for all the times I screwed up. I’ve been telling myself that I’m not good enough for you for six years. And that’s still true. But I want to try to be, if you’ll let me.”</p><p>Britta was done with everything now, and reached under the bar for her jacket and keys. He winced as she began to put it on, praying to whatever higher power he believed in that she would stop.</p><p>“And it’s not that I can’t be here without you. I can. I just don’t want to. But I’m not asking you to stay, because that’s not fair. I’m just letting you know. Everything that’s happened, it meant a lot to me. More than a lot. So, yeah. That’s it.”</p><p>Britta walked over to him, keys in hand. She looked up at him. He felt like a slice of Swiss cheese, shot to pieces for everyone to see through, waiting for her to say something after he’d bared his soul in front of a crowd of strangers. He couldn’t help but think of when she’d been in his position, and he’d walked away. So it was only fair, really, that now the roles were reversed. His heart leapt as she reached out a hand toward him, but then he realized she was only reaching for her cat. He passed the carrier to her silently, and watched as she turned around to walk out, all the way to the door.</p><p>But then, she stopped. And she turned around, placing the cat on the floor. And she said, “Okay, first of all, screw you.”</p><p>Jeff felt himself deflate like a balloon. He heard someone nearby audibly gasp. Britta continued, “Second, just so we’re both very clear on this…  I will never, ever change my last name.”</p><p>And then Jeff didn’t hear much of anything after that, not everyone clapping, not Shirley screaming over the phone, not even Abed popping champagne. Because it wasn’t a big show with fanfare for them, not really. It was actually very anticlimactic, because it was just one of those things that was going to happen sooner or later. It was a long embrace, it was a kiss that promised more to come, it was sharing Abed’s champagne with their ankles snaked together underneath the table. It was saying one less goodbye. Really, it was just the two of them, and whatever life decided to dish out next. Because that’s the way it had always been.</p>
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